Jim Jarmusch

From the time he emerged onto the film scene with "Stranger Than Paradise" (1984), writer-director Jim Jarmusch defined the true meaning of independent director. Though he decried being labeled as suc...
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Movie producer Karl Baumgartner has died just weeks after he was honoured for his career achievements at the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany. The Italian-born German film producer and distributor passed away at his home in Frankfurt, Germany on Tuesday (18Mar14). He was 65. No more details about his death were available as WENN went to press.
Baumgartner was a champion of arthouse cinema who launched his own distribution company, Pandora Film, with Reinhard Brundig in 1982 and discovered filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch and Sally Potter.
His most famous credits include Le Havre, Mostly Martha, Samsara and Underground, which was awarded the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 1995.
Baumgartner was honoured with the Berlinale Camera award at the Berlin International Film Festival in February (14) in recognition of his contribution to cinema.

Sony Pictures via Everett Collection
Cate Blanchett recently won her second Academy Award for her brilliant performance in Blue Jasmine , which means that a younger generation of moviegoers is becoming familiar with her work for the first time. Prior to this, Blanchett has been relatively absent from the film industry, devoting her time instead to the Sydney Theatre Company which she co-directed with her husband for six years. Moreover, most moviegoers recognize Blanchett for her brief appearances as Galadriel in the beloved The Lord of The Rings trilogy, or for her performances in more mainstream films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and The Aviator (2004), for which she won her first Academy Award as legendary actress Katharine Hepburn. All of this is fine, but Blanchett’s greatest performances can be found in lesser-known, independent films that mainstream audiences tend to overlook. Below is a list of 10 of these performances to remind us once again why Blanchett is one of the most captivating screen actresses of our time.
1. Jude in I’m Not There. (2007)
In Todd Haynes’ wildly inventive “biopic” of Bob Dylan, Blanchett owns the film as a version of the musician during his electric years. Since the film isn’t told in a linear fashion, audiences didn’t bother to see it, but within seconds it becomes clear that Blanchett is the only performer — male or female — who could have played this role.
2. Philippa in Heaven (2002)
Blanchett is a revelation as a woman who is arrested for terrorist acts and subsequently falls in love with the officer (Giovanni Ribisi) who is supposed to look after her while in a holding cell. Heaven begins as a thriller and ends as one of the most romantic films ever made, with Blanchett taking the audience on this riveting journey every step of the way
3. Sheba Hart in Notes on a Scandal (2006)
Blanchett goes toe-to-toe with acting legend Judi Dench in this taut psychological drama about a teacher (Blanchett) who has an affair with a student and is found out by one of the senior teachers (Dench) at the school. Few films are as impeccably acted as this, and during the film’s intense, climactic showdown, Blanchett shows a side of herself that audiences haven’t seen since.
4. Cate and Shelly in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Coffee and Cigarettes is an anthology film by Jim Jarmusch, and in one of the vignettes entitled “Cousins,” Blanchett stars opposite herself as both Cate and Shelly, two wildly different cousins who reunite over a cup of coffee. Not much happens here, except that we are shown Blanchett’s incredible range as she inhabits both of these characters with equal skill. Who else can pull something like this off and yet make it so watchable and believable?
5. Tracy in Little Fish (2005)
Blanchett is riveting as a drug addict struggling to rebuild her life in this excellent Australian drama. Those who marveled at Blanchett’s ability to confront addiction head-on in Blue Jasmine might be surprised to find that she’s just as fierce in Little Fish, a film that might have earned her a Best Actress Academy Award if it were more popular in the United States.
6. Charlotte Gray in Charlotte Gray (2001)
Blanchett is lovely as a young Scottish woman who joins the French Resistance during WWII to find her boyfriend who is lost in France. Director Gillian Armstrong is known for her beautiful restraint, and Blanchett matches her with a performance that feels so authentic we almost forget she’s acting at all.
7. Kate Wheeler in Bandits (2001)
Who knew Blanchett could be so funny? Bandits is a ridiculous caper that stars Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis as two bank robbers who kidnap Blanchett and fall in love with her. Unlike Heaven, which is somber and serious, Bandits is a playful romp. For those who admired Jennifer Lawrence’s “Live and Let Die” moment in American Hustle, remember that Blanchett did it years ago while dancing to “I Need a Hero” in this film.
8. Veronica Guerin in Veronica Guerin (2003)
In this true story, Blanchett plays Veronica Guerin, an Irish journalist who was murdered by drug dealers when she exposed their crimes in her articles. This is a heartbreaking tale about an ordinary hero, and Blanchett’s riveting turn pays proper homage to Guerin while simultaneously allowing her legacy to live on in the hearts and minds of those fortunate enough to who watch this courageous film.
9. Petal Barr in The Shipping News (2001)
The Shipping News isn’t a great movie, but it is worth mentioning for Blanchett’s scene-stealing turn as Kevin Spacey’s reckless lover who leaves him in the beginning of the movie. Her part is small, but she makes an undeniable impact, and shows how she can make the most of even the slightest roles. For the few scenes she’s in, Blanchett makes us feel like we’ve been with this character forever.
10. Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998)
One of the biggest injustices in Academy Awards history is when Gwyneth Paltrow won the Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in the same year that Blanchett gave us her rendition of a young Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth, one of the finest lead performances in the history of cinema. Paltrow is fine, but Blanchett’s work in this film is in a class by itself. This is the one that started it all.
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Rocker Tom Waits forced moviemaker Jim Jarmusch to back down in a bust-up over a pop promo by threatening to glue his hair to a wall. The pair, who previously worked together on Jarmusch's 1986 crime comedy Down by Law, were shooting a video for Waits' 1992 song I Don't Wanna Grow Up when a disagreement erupted over the style of the film.
They came to blows in a parking lot near the shoot in Los Angeles and Jarmusch ended up locking Waits behind a door, but he eventually caved in and let the star go after the rocker shouted his bizarre threat.
Jarmusch tells Uncut magazine, "We had a big fight in which I locked him in an enclosed parking lot behind a metal door in L.A. in the middle of the night. He was pounding on the door. I vividly remember the insult, which no one has ever said to me again. He yelled through the door: 'God damn it, Jim, I'm going to glue your hair to the wall.' At which point I let him back in. It was a fight between friends. We reconciled."

Front Row Filmed Entertainment
Finally: a Weekend Planner for all things undead. Funny no one thought of it sooner, but October seems like the perfect time to start. And you're going to want to bookmark these ones, for sure.
Forever Tilda: No, Literally
Jim Jarmusch's vampire film, The Only Lovers Left Alive, isn't opening at the New York Film Festival until October 10th, but there are those nasty ticket lines. If they're sold out before you get there, here are two reasons why it would be worth begging everyone you know for tickets. The film has been tearing it up at festivals. And Tilda Swinton will be there to talk about the film. So will Jarmusch and Jeffrey Wright, but they're not androgyne goddeses.
3D Matinee
If you dig your vamps more tongue-in-cheek-lurid, master of horror Dario Argento's latest offering, Argento's Dracula 3D, opens at selected IFC screens on Oct 4th. If you don't know the work of this cult director already, you should. In fact, stay in Friday night and download a mini-festival first. Once you've studied up, treat yourself to a giant popcorn and try the Saturday afternoon matinee: less lines, more 1950s.
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The organizers of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival have released the full list of films they're planning to screen during the Sept. 5 - 15 fete. It's a decidedly more down to earth list of titles than appeared at Cannes in May but may boast even more Oscar contenders: films like August: Osage County, The Fifth Estate, Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, and one very special new film from Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises. Here are five takeaways we had from this year's TIFF lineup, and below that, you'll find a list of select titles from the lineup for which we're especially excited.
1. Character is King — Deeply felt character studies dominate the lineup this year rather than movies driven more by visual flash. Some are more or less traditional biopics like Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. Ron Howard's Rush emphasizes the clash of personalities between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) as much as it does the races. And Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, perhaps the biggest visual spectacle on the TIFF lineup, is notable for being a portrait of a female astronaut (Bullock) and her struggle to survive after an accident while also dealing with her lingering emotional distress following the death of her daughter. Toronto this year is truly an actor's market. Even more so because...
2. A Bunch of Actors Are Trying Their Hand at Directing — Jason Bateman is making his feature-film directing debut with the spelling bee revenge comedy Bad Words, while James Franco is following up his (pretty much unwatched) Hart Crane and Sal Mineo biopics with his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God. And of course Joseph Gordon-Levitt will unspool his directorial debut, Don Jon, which is also the first time we've seen him with a gelled-up pompadour.
3. Cory Monteith Is Well Represented – The late Glee star has not one but two films at TIFF, Gia Milani's All the Wrong Reasons and Josh C. Waller's McCanick, both of which will make their world premiere at the fest.
4. This is the Place for Smaller, More Personal Films — While Cannes can still celebrate movies that might not otherwise find an audience (like Abdellatif Kechiche's Palme d'Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, also at TIFF), Toronto goes all-in for small films. Just this past May Cannes got showy movies from big, flashy directors like Roman Polanski, the Coen Brothers, Baz Luhrmann, Nicolas Winding Refn, Stephen Soderbergh, and Takashi Miike. But this year Toronto will draw Steve McQueen, Kelly Reichardt, Stephen Frears, Jason Reitman, and Alex Gibney, often the makers of quieter, more introspective films — films that may not even have found a distributor yet. That's ultimately why...
5. Toronto Is More Important Than Cannes — Actor and Lars von Trier repertory member Jean-Marc Barr once told me, "Cannes is now like the G8 summit." It's pretty corporate and not as essential these days for films really looking for a distributor. Looked at another way, Palme d'Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color still doesn't have a North American distributor. However, Toronto is the perfect laboratory for testing out films with a North American audience — if Franco's Child of God doesn't get a distributor after TIFF, it might not get one at all. You can also see Toronto as the first stop on the Oscar circuit. If there's a groundswell of support for Sandra Bullock for Best Actress consideration for Gravity, it'll be because buzz was first generated among potential Oscar voters at Toronto, not Cannes.
Here are some of the most notable films appearing TIFF 2013. What are you looking forward to?
The Fifth Estate Bill Condon, USA (World Premiere) OPENING NIGHT
Life of Crime Daniel Schecter, USA (World Premiere) CLOSING NIGHT
August: Osage County John Wells, USA (World Premiere)
Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom Peter Chadwick (World Premiere)
Rush Ron Howard, United Kingdom/Germany (International Premiere)
All the Wrong Reasons Gia Milani, Canada (World Premiere)
The Armstrong Lie Alex Gibney, USA (North American Premiere)
Bad Words Jason Bateman, USA (World Premiere)
Blue Is The Warmest Color Abdellatif Kechiche, France (North American Premiere)
Child of God James Franco, USA (North American Premiere)
Dallas Buyers Club Jean-Marc Vallée, USA (World Premiere)
Don Jon Joseph Gordon-Levitt, USA (Canadian Premiere)
Gravity Alfonso Cuarón, USA/United Kingdom (North American Premiere)
Labor Day Jason Reitman, USA (World Premiere)
McCanick Josh C. Waller, USA (World Premiere)
Night Moves Kelly Reichardt, USA (North American Premiere)
Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch, USA (North American Premiere)
Philomena Stephen Frears, United Kingdom (North American Premiere)
12 Years a Slave Steve McQueen, USA (World Premiere)
The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) Hayao Miyazaki, Japan (North American Premiere)
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
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Jay-Z debuted his arty Picasso Baby promo on TV in America on Friday night (02Aug13). The 10-minute clip featured the rapper performing at the Pace Gallery in New York City surrounded by famous friends including moviemakers Jim Jarmusch and Judd Apatow, actors Alan Cumming, Adam Driver, Taraji P. Henson and Rosie Perez, and members of the Big Apple's art scene, including performance artist Marina Abramovic, who was personally thanked in the end credits of the Mark Romanek-directed video.

Steven Soderbergh threw his support behind Spike Lee's crowdsourcing initiative as a way of giving back to the director who inspired him at the beginning of his career. Soderbergh handed over a $10,000 (£6,600) donation to the Malcolm X director's page on Kickstarter.com last week (beg22Jul13) in an effort to help raise $1.3 million (£833,330) by 21 August (13) to cover the cost of an as-yet-untitled film project.
Oscar-winning moviemaker Soderbergh has now revealed he decided to become a sponsor because Lee was one of a trio of directors, including David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch, in the 1980s who inspired him not to give up his dream of making films.
In a letter entitled Why I Back Spike Lee, which has been posted on the Kickstarter page, Soderbergh writes, "The 80s was not a great decade for American cinema... (But) every so often, however, an independent film (or filmmaker) would emerge that felt connected to both those recent, great American films and to great cinema from around the world, and as I was attempting to find my own voice and place in the film world, three independent American filmmakers in particular attracted my attention and expanded my idea of what was possible; David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Spike Lee... These were shoulders I would try to stand on, that I would be proud to stand on.
"For me, Spike Lee is... a totally unique figure in American cinema, and he's always gone his own way and spoken his mind (even when the commercial stakes were high), qualities which are in short supply in the film business. I know Spike's films better than I know Spike... but we're friendly enough for me to say I respect him as person as well as a filmmaker.
"So, in case you haven't figured it out already, this is why I'm supporting Spike on Kickstarter: 1. Spike's success helped make my success possible. 2. Spike has earned my attention because of his body of work and its distinct point of view. 3. You should support your friends. Now let's light this candle!"
Lee's fundraising campaign for the movie, which he has described as "funny, sexy and bloody", had raised $403,781 (£269,187) as WENN went to press.
The moviemaker was so thrilled with Soderbergh's contribution, he has offered to take him out to dinner as thanks.

Oscar winner Tilda Swinton is to curate a day of movies at a festival in Iceland. The Michael Clayton star will select films to be shown at All Tomorrow's Parties, which takes place on 28-29 June (13).
Director Jim Jarmusch will take charge of the second day.
Swinton and Jarmusch recently worked together on new movie Only Lovers Left Alive.
Meanwhile, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Chelsea Light Moving, The Fall and Deerhoof are scheduled to perform at the two-day event in Keflavik.

There are certain characters that have become inextricably affiliated with art films, or at least films of similar high regard. These characters are often dealing with extreme emotional turmoil and their life journeys raise profound questions about the human condition. But when listing the types of characters that tend to populate movies with praiseworthy artistic sensibilities, hitmen would have a rather lengthy wait before hearing their name mentioned. This is unjust.
Since the golden age of the western, and then into the height of the Warner Gangster movies, we have developed an affinity for outlaws — and hitmen would certainly qualify as such. The idea of centering a film on an antihero who kills people for a living may seem a function of baser exploitation, but the fact is that some truly outstanding films, well deserving of being lauded as works of art, have featured all manner of assassins (and this week’s Killing Them Softly may join their ranks). So how do these films separate themselves from the cheaper action shoot-em-ups that might also revolve around contract killers?
The Duality of Humanizing
The most recognizable difference between a multifaceted, morally ambiguous protagonist, and a reprehensible or one-note killer meant to please the groundlings , is the degree to which the filmmaker humanizes that character. It is a means of adding complexity and, in some cases, uneasy amiability to characters our moral compass should have us rejecting outright. The interesting thing about some of the truly great films about assassins, however, is that the injection of humanity doesn’t have to absolve their sins.
In Luc Besson’s Leon, Jean Reno plays a ruthless hitman who, against his better judgment, takes in the daughter, played by Natalie Portman, of a recently murdered couple. His relationship with Portman allows the audience to forgive him his murderous occupation. Luc Besson adeptly plays with the gray moral standards by having Leon’s twelve-year-old ward discover and accept his profession. Leon’s commitment to protecting her, and indeed to maintaining her happiness, makes him incredibly empathetic and we no longer see him as merely a mass murderer for hire.
But humanizing a character does not always result in a good guy. Take Anton Chigurh in The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Javier Bardem does an amazing job portraying Chigurh as, not so much an assassin, but as a force of Biblical wrath; something Old Testament that cannot be deterred by any interference from mankind. And yet, the last we see of Chigurh, he’s wounded in a completely boneheaded car accident and limps into the sunset. Do we like Chigurh as a result? No. But this moment makes the monster mortal; adding a layer of nuance and density to that role. It also plays perfectly into the Coens’ darkest of senses of humor.
Watch: Brad Pitt Is The Great American Gangster in 'Killing Them Softly' — TRAILER
Speak The Speech, I Dare You
These two differing tactics for humanizing your hitmen actually coalesce in Pulp Fiction. We do like Jules and Vincent, but we have no illusions about their turpitude. One could argue in fact that the moment we like them most is when they nearly irrevocably screw up that hit by accidentally shooting Marvin in the face. They become more relatable at that point, more human; who hasn’t messed up on the job? However, there is also something to be said for the dialogue elevating a standard and, fittingly, pulpy hitman story.
There is a classic-style ritual to the way particularly Jules carries out his assignments. He recites Bible passages in a slowly building monologue that serves as the victim’s last rites. Is it immensely quotable? Absolutely, but this dialogue isn’t just for spectacle. The pulse of Pulp Fiction is in its language, its vocabulary and specificity of referential jargon. So much of the character-building necessary to make something more of a fimic killer is tied up in what they say and how they say it. Actions may speak louder than words, but ask yourself this question: once Jules is done delivering his thunderous sermon, do we ever see one bullet enter the victim to whom he is preaching?
Death: The Ultimate Punchline
Let us again examine the Coens and their, shall we say, advanced sense of humor, which tends to turn up in even the most somber of situations. Fargo is absolutely a comedy, and astonishingly we even find ourselves laughing at hitman Steve Buscemi in a wood chipper. There is something to be said for these darkly comedic approaches allowing us to subconsciously deal more directly with our own mortality. We laugh at death to take at least an ounce out of the sting of its inevitability.
Similarly, we are given leave to laugh at death in films like In Bruges and Grosse Point Blank, two fundamentally great films about assassins. The wisecracking, sometimes farcical hitmen we see in such films don’t just aid in our unspoken coping with the big sleep. These films are great because the universal themes our more flawed hitters represent make them more organic and tangible. We might not be able to say we’ve ever collected on a death contract, but bad vacations and the discomfort of a high school reunion? Those are obstacles we’ve had to check off our own hit list.
Killer Codes
Again, by the according-to-Hoyle notions of right and wrong, assassins are less than exemplary, but that does not necessarily mean they are bereft of honor. What tends to account for the elevated auteur nature of the truly great cinematic hitmen is their adherence to their own personal codes. Leon’s number one rule would be echoed by many hitters in films both prior to and following Besson’s film: no women, no kids. It’s may be a simple edict, but the moral divide between audience and criminal protagonist shrinks considerably at its employment.
But these codes can often be stricter and more elaborate. Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai tells the story of a French killer who abided by a Spartan, or rather Samurai, existence free of all extravagance. Another killer who followed closely to the ancient Bushido was Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog. These are characters that live outside the law, but their self-imposed ethics make them respectable. The demise of these characters usually follows a rare lapse in their abiding by their own codes; Charles Bronson in The Mechanic could certainly attest to that.
[Photo Credit: The Weinstein Company; Miramax Pictures]
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Film acting is a bizarre beast. On the one hand, it is a demanding profession that takes years to master. However, there is something to be said for intangible natural talent, the kind of talent that lies dormant within persons in entirely separate fields until they are given the opportunity to transition. Tyler Perry has always been an actor, so his, shall we say, “Cross”over this weekend doesn’t seem an enormous stretch. But Perry is far better known as a director and he’s never before shouldered a leading role, an action hero no less, of the magnitude of Alex Cross. This got us thinking about some of the other, even more unconventional places from which film stars have transitioned:
From Rapper to Actor: Mos Def
Music is an essential component to any film; the soundtrack and score often providing the pulse of the movie. With this inextricable link between the two mediums, it’s not surprising that so many musicians have made the transition to acting. What is interesting to note is the variance of genres of music from which these actors hail. Yasiin Bey, better known to the world as Mos Def, is one of the most influential voices in hip-hop, and yet his film catalogue is not without its fair share of success as well. He’s appeared in films like Monster’s Ball, Be Kind Rewind, and crowd-pleasers like The Italian Job. He was also absolutely brilliant as Ford Prefect in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
From Folk Singer to Actor: Tom Waits
There are in fact so many musicians who have made the leap to film that it impossible to construct this list and only feature one. Though Tom Waits’ style of music could not be more different from that of Mos Def, like the rapper, Waits is constantly experimenting and redefining his sound. That creative flexibility may lend itself to his innate screen presence. Though he just delivered an outstanding turn in Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, and has become a favorite performer of indie director Jim Jarmusch, the role that represents the crown jewel of his film career is Renfield in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. He perfectly inhabits the role with an unsettling mastery of measured madness.
From Convict to Actor: Danny Trejo
Danny Trejo has made name for himself throughout his career playing primarily bad dudes. This inclination toward characters that reside comfortably outside the boundaries of the law is actually not much of a mystery. For much of his life, Trejo dealt with a drug addiction and was in and out of prison, even earning the title of Pennsylvania state prison boxing champ while serving an eleven-year sentence. He started his film career accidentally, playing background heavies and henchmen before Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado earned him national attention. Sometimes naturalism and life experience can overwhelmingly supersede occupational experience.
From Football Player to Actor: Fred “The Hammer” Williamson
Fred Williamson became an icon of blaxploitatoin in the 1970s, and one of its brightest stars. But before he was putting the hurt on bad guys in films like Boss, Black Caesar, and Bucktown, he earned his hard-hitting nickname playing in the NFL. The Hammer proved to have just as much charisma on the screen as he had aptitude on the gridiron. Hammer became such a mainstay of the subgenre that he was able to demand a strict set of rules for the characters he played. He was to win all of his fights, always get the girl, and he absolutely could not be killed. Quentin Tarantino was such a fan that he wrote him into the script for From Dusk Til Dawn.
From War Hero to Actor: Audie Murphy
On the flipside of the method movie star track is Audie Murphy. Murphy became a cinematic icon for playing war heroes; seemed to have an instinctive knack for it. Turns out, before becoming an actor, Murphy was in fact a highly decorated World War II veteran. The reports of his deeds during the various campaigns read like the greatest of Hollywood screenplays. He apparently leapt onto a burning tank, which could have exploded at any time, in order to use the tank-mounted machine gun to save his battalion from advancing Germans. It’s not often you see movie stars who are legitimate action heroes before they are ever in front of a camera.
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches
[Photo Credit: Summit Entertainment]
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Title

Filmed his 1991 feature "Night on Earth" on location in Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome and Helsinki; project reteamed him with Benigni and Waits who composed music, as well as writing, producing and performing several songs

Directed, wrote, and edited the breakthrough feature "Stranger Than Paradise", an expanded version of his short film "New World"

Directed, wrote, edited, and composed the music for "Permanent Vacation", his first feature; Tom DiCillo served as director of photography; on its completion, Wenders gave him some leftover film stock which he used for part of "Stranger Than Paradise"

Made third short in the series, "Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California", featuring Tom Waits and Iggy Pop as themselves; received Cannes Palme d'Or for short films

Wrote and directed the short "New World"

Helmed the Neil Young concert film "Year of the Horse"

Wrote and directed the first in a series of short films titled "Coffee and Cigarettes"; Benigni co-starred with Steven Wright

Won acclaim at Cannes for "Mystery Train"

Wrote and directed "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai", about a hit man who finds he's been double-crossed; film featured a highly-charged soundtrack by The RZA (of the Wu-Tang Clan) ; debuted in competition at Cannes

Helmed the music video "The Lady Don't Mind" by Talking Heads

Worked as a production assistant on the epochal Nicholas Ray/Wim Wenders collaboration, "Lightning Over Water"

Reteamed with Waits as director of the music video for "I Don't Wanna Grow Up"

Wrote and directed the second "Coffee and Cigarettes: Memphis Version", featuring Steve Buscemi, Cinque Lee and Joie Lee

Provided sound recording for "Burroughs", a documentary about the writer William S Burroughs

Wrote and directed "Coffee and Cigarettes," a comic series of 11 unconnected short vignettes built on one another to create a cumulative effect, and centered around various people chatting while sitting around sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes

Helmed "It's Alright with Me", a music video of Waits' single

Worked as an actor in Lothar Lambert's West German feature "Fraulein Berlin"

Helmed the more mainstream film, "Broken Flowers," which stars Bill Murray and includes appearances by an array of actresses including Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton and Frances Conroy

Wrote and directed the revisionist "Dead Man", a hallucinatory black-and-white period Western starring Johnny Depp as a fugitive befriended by a Native American (Gary Farmer); Neil Young's haunting score greatly enhanced film's atmosphere; Jarmusch subseq

Summary

From the time he emerged onto the film scene with "Stranger Than Paradise" (1984), writer-director Jim Jarmusch defined the true meaning of independent director. Though he decried being labeled as such, there was no doubt that his steadfast refusal to take Hollywood money in order to maintain creative and financial control over his films made him synonymous with the low-budget indie world. In hip, comic, minimalist films like "Down By Law" (1986) and "Mystery Train" (1989), Jarmusch explored the recurring theme of cultures colliding, typically by using outsiders from foreign countries to examine the cultural wasteland of post-modern America. Creating a visible persona by appearing as an actor in other indies - most notably "Blue in the Face" (1995) - only helped raise interest in Jarmusch by the refined intelligentsia he catered to. Though he occasionally perplexed critics and fans with some of his output, notably "Dead Man" (1995) and "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai' (2000), Jarmusch nonetheless retained his own identity - not to mention all the film negatives - even while touching upon more mainstream narratives like "Broken Flowers" (2005), making him a truly independent filmmaker.

born c. 1961; appeared in Tom DiCillo's "Johnny Suede" (1991) and "Living in Oblivion" (1995)

Education

Name

Northwestern University

Columbia University

Institute of Film and Television , New York University

Cayahoga Falls High School

Notes

"Independent filmmaking is a lot like gambling. I could make a lot more money by taking [Hollywood] directing jobs, or giving away control of my films and selling to the highest bidder. But if I'm putting up three years of my life and a lot of work, and you put up the money, we can split the profits, but I keep the negative."---Jim Jarmusch to Variety, December 27, 1989.

"I want the critics to find my films themselves. Most films aren't demanding enough of the audience. I've tried to see this supposed 'new' strain in American movies. Instead, I see the realities like 'Desperately Seeking Susan' and 'Blood Simple'. They're Spielbergian, a play on accepting television language. They don't trust the audience, cutting to a new shot every six or seven seconds. Frankly, I feel the whole situation for making films has gotten worse."---Jarmusch in American Film, October 1986.

"Anytime you make a film, it's not my money I use, so there's business considerations; I'm not naive and not oblivious to them. But they serve the film in the end, rather than the film serving the money. I think maybe that's the basic difference. As soon as the work is there to serve the budget, rather than the budget being there to serve the work, then it's backwards and that's not independent anymore.

"I get to make films the way I want. It would be frustrating if no one would help me finance them. I don't care where the money comes from as long as it doesn't have restrictions with guys in suits telling me how to cast the film and how to cut it and what actors to cast, or what music to use. As long as it's my work then I'm happy. I don't care if that money comes from Universal or if it comes from some independent business guys in, you know, in France, or wherever." ---Jarmusch quoted in Filmmaker Focus at www.sundancechannel.com

On censorship: "It's like Oscar Wilde says, paraphrasing him: 'The imagination should be out of bounds to any form of censorship.' Because if you can release things in your imagination you may not have to act on them. For example, sexuality in Scandinavia is probably a hell of a lot more healthy than in America, where it is repressed. I think that there are fewer people there who are raping and abusing others than here. I think if you look at 'gangster rap', which gets constantly harassed, you'll see it's from young brothers comin' out of the streets who have no other way to get out. They get attacked all the time, but you don't see Arnold Schwarzenegger movies attacked in the same way, which are a far more visual form of violence. But I would stick up for those movies, too, because they're strong stories. Look at 'The Iliad'. It is all about very violent war.

"I don't understand that way of thinking, which is a very sneaky way of trying to control us and keep a certain social order by attacking expression. They say, 'The expression is the cause.' No, that's backwards. The expression is a reflection of a history of human-kind. There is something wrong with that suppression. I think that the imagination and expression of the imagination should be protected as a totally free zone. Obviously there are rules. You don't want to have children exposed to certain things, but all cultures protect their children so thay are prepared for life. Even things that are sick and twisted should be permitted to be expressed in some way because thay are an escape valve. It's when these things are repressed that people act out on them. But I don't know. I'm not a sociologist. It's not my job. I don't wave banners around."---Jarmusch quoted in MovieMaker, Issue No 37, Volume 7.

"In the past, when I started to write scripts, and ideas came to me from other films or from books, I would shove them away. In this case ['Ghost Dog'] I accepted them. I think it has to do with music, with bebop and hip-hop. Something opened up in me; like when you listen to Charlie Parker and he plays a solo, but then he quotes a standard in his solo, and weaves it in. I think that finally registered for me, and I decided to construct a film where the door was open for things like Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Le Samourai', Seijun Suzuki's 'Branded to Kill', 'Don Quixote', 'Frankenstein', hip-hop culture ... a lot of things."---Jarmusch quoted in Premiere, February 2000.

"A bunch of old white men have run things so far. That's why I've always been interested in people who don't fit it. I have friends who are in prison, off the grid, living on reservations. I learn more from them, somehow, and I respect them."---Jarmusch to The New York Times, February 29, 2000.

"I don't know what 'indie film' means anymore. The term has been usurped as a marketing device. The name is like alternative music, they labeled it to make it mainstream. To me, independent film means that the people making the film love cinema as a beautiful form of expression and make the creative decisions without having market analysis to decide what the audience wants the product to be. After all, the beauty of a film is that when you go into a theater, you enter a world, and you have no idea where it's going to take you. Like a piece of music, it sweeps you along in its own rhythm and its own time."---Jarmusch, quoted in Richard Corliss' review of "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai", in Time, March 13, 2000.

"For me, mistakes are the most important part of working ... The things you do wrong help you go forward because what you do right, you often can't explain."---Jarmusch to Cate Blanchett in Interview June 2004

"It's all so . . . independent. I'm so sick of that word. I reach for my revolver when I hear the word 'quirky.' Or 'edgy.' Those words are now becoming labels that are slapped on products to sell them. Anyone who makes a film that is the film they want to make, and it is not defined by marketing analysis or a commercial enterprise, is independent. My movies are kind of made by hand. They're not polished, they're sort of built in the garage. It's more like being an artisan in some way."---Jarmusch to The New York Times, July 31, 2005.